Saints' AFL coach urges physicality

Greg Buckle

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson warned changes will definitely be made as he delivered a scathing assessment of their lack of physicality in their 85-point loss to Carlton on Sunday.

Richardson said he was incredibly disappointed by his side's second-half performance at Etihad Stadium.

The last-placed Saints trailed Carlton by 15 points at halftime, before conceding 14 goals and scoring just three in the second half.

Advertisement

It was St Kilda's 10th consecutive defeat.

"The (lack of) real care really disappointed me tonight, the real want to represent our footy club and our team the way it needs to be in terms of effort, in terms of physicality, in terms of really wanting to roll the sleeves up and get the job done," Richardson said.

"There's no doubt we need to make sure we've got the boys ready to compete and be physical and training will reflect that."

St Kilda had shown plenty of spirit in the second term, kicking 5.5 to Carlton's 4.0.

"When you turn up and do it in the second quarter it only illustrates to a greater level that we're choosing when it's time to have a crack or we're choosing that I couldn't be stuffed, so that's disappointing," Richardson said.

"We just had way too many blokes that weren't prepared to fight.

"There's a real spirit that's required, a competitive spirit to play at this level and we just didn't have enough guys that were prepared to work hard enough for long enough to give us a chance to be competitive."

Richardson refused to use youth as an excuse for his side, saying they simply didn't work hard enough.

"There will be changes made to that team," he said.

"We can't dish up that sort of performance and still have the same guys have the honour and the opportunity to represent the club.

"They will have forfeited their position, there's no doubt about that, but whoever comes in irrespective of how experienced they are will know that you have to accept the responsibility to make sure that your effort is unquestioned."